For an Italian, it is easier to gesticulate without speaking than talking without gesturing.
Nina was strolling down Piazza San Marco during a rainy day, gesticulating and talking by herself. She notices that I point my camera at her, her eyes are sad and grieving.
I am ready to apologise, should I have offended her. Although she does not really seem so, she looks relieved to have found someone to talk to.
She starts telling me her story right away, without me asking questions. She tells me that she was one of the first Partisan women, the resistance to the fascists during WWII and in doing so she shows me a wound on her forearm.
I see only water around me: the rain pouring down on the ancient facades, the flooded square and the tears that run down her face.
"I don't have anyone anymore, you know. My friends died in the war, my husband I don't know .. and me, after defending my country so much ... they left me alone. € 500 pension a month, that’s what I have been given for serving my country. But can I manage with so little? How do I live?
But do you know what I do now? I am going to write to the President of the Republic, yes yes, now I go home and I’ll write him a letter “ and off she goes.
I dedicate the photo of Nina to all those who were looking for a better future.
There are those who migrate and those who fight, there are those who drive and those who march but in the end, we are all moved by the same principles: hope for a better tomorrow.
